Hydro power plant in Leon, Nicaragua. Approximate location 12.7158, -86.2798.
HydroLeonNicaraguaconventional storage
Carlos Fonesca (Santa Barbara) Hydroelectric Power Plant Nicaragua is a 54 MW hydro power plant in Leon, Nicaragua. It is operated by Empresa Nicaragüense de Electricidad. Based on its capacity (estimated), it can supply roughly 54k homes (estimated). It ranks #14 of 19 Nicaragua power plants by installed capacity. Commissioned in 1970, it is around 56 years old — an older, legacy facility. As a non-combustion source, it has no direct CO₂ emissions from generation. In context, hydro supplies about 14.4% of Nicaragua's electricity; the national grid averages 301 gCO₂/kWh (62.4% low-carbon) (2024).
Plant data: WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0), id GEODB0043592.
Known, modelled and calculated values are kept separate. Missing fields are shown as unavailable.
The capacity and/or fuel fields on this page include a source-backed provenance label from GEM, an official registry, Wikidata, OSM, or a cross-source match.
capacity: GEM tracker 2026 (location L100001023141); fuel: WRI source-record fuel
Technically it is described as conventional storage. Hydropower converts the energy of falling or flowing water into electricity; output depends on rainfall and reservoir level, and large dams also provide grid balancing and storage.
Capacity comparison computed from the WRI Global Power Plant Database; fuel-type context is general engineering background.
Installed capacity (MW), WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0).
Operated by Empresa Nicaragüense de Electricidad.
This hydro plant converts the energy of falling or flowing water through hydro turbines. It sits in a tropical savanna climate (Köppen Aw) — Northern Hemisphere, latitude 12.7°N — which shapes how much energy it can produce and how its output varies through the year.
Monthly mean temperature
This site has effectively no heating season (tropical/equatorial climate), so winter heat loss is not the driver here. The thermal concern shifts to year-round process heat and humidity/heat-driven corrosion of hot equipment.
Climate normals: WorldClim 2.1 (1970–2000 monthly normals, 10 arc-min, CC BY 4.0); zone: Köppen-Geiger world climate classification (Kottek et al. 2006, 0.5° grid). Degree-days & heat-demand index computed by PowerAtlas — a modelled heat-demand proxy, not a measured site figure.
For a plant’s outdoor hardware — heat-recovery steam generators (HRSG), expansion joints, valves, flanges and their insulation — the local climate sets how fast unprotected steel and coatings degrade. This site sits in a corrosive environment (estimated ISO 9223 class C4 — High), with humidity / wetness the leading environmental stress.
Higher environmental severity is exactly where protective removable insulation pays back most: a sheltered micro-climate slows corrosion, UV and thermal-cycling damage and extends outdoor hardware service life. This is an indicative site-climate context — not a condition assessment of any specific plant or operator.
Indicative estimate via the ISO 9223:2012 informative method (atmospheric corrosivity from temperature, time-of-wetness and airborne salinity), using WorldClim climate normals, the Köppen-Geiger class and coast distance. Indicative, not a measured corrosion rate.
The #1 largest hydro power plant of 2 in Nicaragua by capacity.
Nicaragua has 2 hydro power plants in this dataset, together about 104 MW of capacity.
Coordinates 12.7158, -86.2798 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
Carlos Fonesca (Santa Barbara) Hydroelectric Power Plant Nicaragua is a 54 MW source-record hydro power plant in Leon, Nicaragua, commissioned in 1970.
Its output is enough to supply roughly 54,462 homes (estimated).
Carlos Fonesca (Santa Barbara) Hydroelectric Power Plant Nicaragua is operated by Empresa Nicaragüense de Electricidad.
